Ribbons and Little Statues
by blueandblack
Summary: Ron and Hermione, long before Nineteen Years Later. Written for a meme at my LJ in which people can ask for any ship or character provided I'm familiar with it.


Hermione nudged at a tall dusty cupboard door with her elbow, paused, turned, her lips pressed together, the basilisk fangs clutched to her chest.

She wished they'd been able to leave them behind in the Room of Requirement – she frowned – the _other_ Room of Requirement – or the Room of Requirement in its other form.

They were quite unweildy to carry, and awfully pointy.

_Best try not to squeeze them too tight_, she reminded herself.

She swallowed, glanced in the direction she thought Harry had gone – it was difficult to tell exactly – it was difficult to keep one's bearings in a room that was a study in chaos.

Ron was easier to locate seeing as he was immediately to her right, busy kicking things over and cursing discreetly.

Hermione tried to smile.

"Ron," she said, and when she did she found she was quite breathless. "I feel just awful doing this right now..."

She paused, she inhaled messily.

Ron stopped kicking things and turned around; his mouth fell open, he blanched.

He was always rather pale, but right now he was actually white as a sheet - the expression was quite apt, Hermione thought, and she thought for a moment that he might have been about to drop his fangs onto the floor the way she had when...

She continued as quickly as she could.

"... but considering what happened earlier and what might happen later, I do feel it's important to say that I love you."

Ron blinked. He smiled a nervous smile. "Um... you shouldn't feel awful. I mean... I should feel awful - for not doing it before." He looked down, mumbled "Bloody ages ago."

"Better late than never, I suppose," Hermione said in a small voice with a small blush to match.

Ron looked up.

His head seemed light and the fangs seemed heavy.

This was it.

He was about to tell Hermione how he felt.

He'd learned a lot of nice lines from _Twelve Fail-Safe Ways to Charm Witches,_ but he didn't think any of them were going to cut it - actually, he didn't _want_ them to cut it.

_He_ wanted to cut it. That is, he wanted whatever he said next to be his own - but not stupid - that was the catch. Ron was perfectly fine with talking, he thought, but there was never any guarantee that the things he said would be the things he meant.

"Hermione, I..." he started, for something to be going on with while his mind scrambled for the rest.

Hermione was smiling encouragingly. She shuffled as quietly as she could towards him, and the tall dusty cupboard door began to swing shut as her fangs bumped into his.

And then Ron thought he heard voices. And then there was a deafening crash coming from who knew where - it was so loud it felt like it was all around them - in their bodies - in their bones.

Hermione screamed and there was an avalanche of junk surging towards them and for a second Ron couldn't see her and he wanted to vomit.

But when it stopped she was okay – she was still with him.

And they both said "Harry."

They both ran.

* * *

After the battle - right after - just seconds since Voldemort was emptied out of his shell and before the cheers and victory cries had even begun to fade, Ron broke away from Harry, took Hermione's hand and started pulling her through the crowd.

He was bleeding from his shoulder, and it was dripping down his arm to their fingers. Hermione didn't mind that - she was a bit of a mess herself, after all. But he was practically running, and his legs were much longer than hers, and she couldn't help groaning at a long line of aching from her ribs to her hip as she stumbled behind him.

The noise thinned with the faces, and then they were outside, in the growing daylight, and Ron was still half-running and pulling Hermione along, and he was talking to her, and she could hear what he was saying now.

"I have to tell you," he said, and it might have been alright if he had said it once or twice, but he didn't - he said it dozens of times - he said it over and over like he might never stop, and Hermione was terrified.

On and on they walked-ran, towards the lake, Hermione thought, but when they got to the bank there was a ditch running perpendicular, a long bleak furrow in the earth, and it fizzed and popped, it smoked as the water from the lake trickled into it.

Ron turned abruptly, kept walking, and Hermione was still pulled, stumbling, after him, and he was still saying "I have to tell you..."

Finally they were far enough away, close enough to the edges of the forbidden forest that it seemed like nothing had changed if you were facing in the right direction.

Ron stopped there, and he turned, still holding onto her hand, covering it with his free one too.

There'd be finger-prints in the blood, Hermione thought.

She swallowed hard.

She thought perhaps she should say something now, but Ron started first.

"Hermione..." he said with a determination that might have been comical if his eyes hadn't been wide and straining, if the tendons in his neck hadn't been sharpened and pushing against his skin.

"Hermione," he said again, and "I..." and "I..." and "I..."

And then he was crying - sobbing - retching almost.

And Hermione held him in her arms and she cried too.

Later they would cry with his parents and Ginny and the brothers he had left. Later they would eat and talk. Later they would follow an invisible Harry to the end of his story.

But for now, Hermione held Ron in her arms, and he cried and she cried too, and there were no more words.

* * *

It took Ron a week to start thinking straight. It took him another week after that to find words that weren't stupid. It took him two days after that to actually say them, and then three beats of his heart to get to their second kiss.

His and Hermione's - the second of too many for either of them to count.

They were staying at Bill and Fleur's cottage while Bill and Fleur were at the Burrow. Ron hadn't been able to go back there since the battle, and he hadn't been able to stay at Hogwarts either.

After a few days at Grimmauld Place, Bill had come by and given Ron his keys, and he and Hermione had Apparated by the sea.

Presently they were having what might have been a morbid little picnic at Dobby's grave, but both of them felt oddly comfortable sitting where they did, nibbling on egg and lettuce sandwiches while the sun slid down to the horizon and the waves rolled out from it.

Ron left his crusts on the blanket, dusted the crumbs off his trousers.

"Hermione," he said.

They'd been silent for a long time and Hermione almost lost her grip on her cup of pumpkin juice at the sound of his voice.

Little droplets sprinkled down amongst the crumbs, and she sighed, wedged her cup in the sand, reached for her wand and said "_Scourgify._"

The crusts and the crumbs and the drops of juice vanished.

"Hermione," Ron said again, and she answered "Hmm?"

She leaned back a little, turned to look at him, one hand shielding her eyes from the fading glare.

She smiled.

Ron smiled back.

And then he said "All my life I've felt like I was coming last in a race. Or second-last or something - nowhere that gets you ribbons and little statues."

Hermione frowned. "You have plenty of ribbons," she said. "I found them in your sock drawer at the Burrow. And your name's on the Quidditch Cup - really, you can't do much better than that."

Ron grinned. "Well if you're going to be literal," he said.

Hermione smiled sheepishly, turned her back to the sun so she could see him better, muttered "Sorry."

"That's alright," Ron said. "I like it. I like you - everything about you. I mean, I _love_ everything about you, actually."

Hermione's smile widened. She looked down at her hands in her lap.

"The thing is," Ron continued, "I've always felt sort of... cheated." He rolled his eyes. "You know what a tit I was about the Tri-Wizard Tournament. And I guess it was because, well... I've always wanted things..." He sighed, rubbed at his cheeks and said in a way that was very ashamed, "I've always wanted things that Harry has."

"Ron," Hermione started to say gently, "You know Harry doesn't - "

Ron waved a hand. "I know, I know," he said. "It's not all glory and greatness. And he didn't ask for any of it. I did manage to get that through my thick head somewhere along the way."

Hermione smiled. She reached out and patted his knee in a neat-and-tidy way that made him want to laugh.

He managed not to - laugh, that is - he was trying to say something after all, and he'd need to focus if he was going to get it all out.

He stared at his feet. He said: "I always wanted all these things - Head Boy, Quidditch Captain - that's what I saw in the Mirror of Erised. And I suppose that's pretty normal when you're eleven or twelve or whatever I was. But the problem was that I didn't just grow up and stop wanting them and... and it messed with my head."

Hermione's hand was poised, ready to pat Ron's knee again if need be, and this time he did laugh - just a little.

And he took her hand in his. He looked up.

"What I want to say... Hermione... is..." Ron swallowed the trembling in his voice. "I probably won't get any of them. But that's okay, because..."

He smiled, breathed in, closed his eyes, and when he opened them again the rest tumbled out in a rush.

"Because I got you, you know? And you're a thousand times better than any of it. You're sort of above and beyond everything, Hermione - you honestly are. And no one is luckier than me - not Harry or Viktor Krum or, you know, that Muggle you're always telling me about who invented computers."

Ron reached out for her other hand, squeezed them both in his.

"I'm the luckiest in the end," he said. "Because I got you."

Hermione stared at him after that.

Ron's stomach twisted, his chest burned.

The urge to look away and shrug and make some kind of joke was so strong it sort of hurt.

But he resisted it. He managed to keep his eyes on hers as hers were on his.

_One thousand, two thousand, three thousand._

She was shaking when he kissed her.

The second kiss - Ron's and Hermione's - the second of too many for either of them to count.


End file.
